“Billy didn’t get onto television in New York that night, but he did get onto a radio talk show. [...] They were going to discuss whether the novel was dead or not...
“...So it goes.”
This quotation from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” eloquently encapsulates the reality that the novel is indeed, dead. Any romantic notions of a great American novel in the tradition of Faulkner or Hemingway has come and gone.
Besides the novel, printed work itself is dying. Its guts are the shredded newspapers lying in tatters on the streets. Its blood is the unused ink in the presses. Our modern society seems utterly incompatible with reading.
A couple days ago I was watching a segment on NBC’s Nightly News. Brian Williams quoted Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” with the familiar – but incorrect, “We are such stuff that dreams are made of.”
I said to my dad, “No one ever gets that quote right, it’s: ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on.’” His response was simple but poignant: “Well, almost no one reads Shakespeare anymore. Almost no one reads anymore.”
“We’ve taken the world apart but we have no idea what to do with the pieces.”
As simple as it may be, reading is withering away in each generation. The National Endowment for the Arts found that in 1982, 56.9 percent of Americans had read a work of creative literature in the previous 12 months. By 2002 it was 46.7 percent. A NEA report “To Read or Not to Read,” found a correlation between a decline in reading and social actions like playing sports, exercising, volunteering, going to concerts or theaters, painting, etc.
The report also found that proficient readers are more inclined to vote, and that they statistically earn higher wages. The NEA chairman Dana Gioia summarized the findings by saying that “poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of employment, lower wages and fewer opportunities to advance.”
“It’s as if her mind is having a hard time communicating with her mouth, as if she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility...”
Newspapers are also slipping into the fray. Editor and Publisher International Year Book found a ten million drop in weekday newspapers circulation from 1970 to 2006, but newspapers across the country are dying. The Rocky Mountain News has gone defunct, the Chicago Tribune is in chapter eleven and the New York Times is looking to mortgage their building to ease costs.
Book Industry Study Group has tracked estimates on book sales per person. In 2002 the estimate was 8.27 books, but in 2006 – yet another epic fall to 7.93 books. The aforementioned NEA report concluded that the average American household’s spending on books had reached a 20 year low.
The Department of Education is inclined to believe that the average American is losing their ability to read. Between 1992 and 2003 the average adult’s reading skill slipped one point (on a 500 point scale). Proficient readers fell from 15 percent to 13 percent in the same time frame.
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
Clearly there’s a trend in the fabric of American attitudes toward the novel, and the cause of this trend seems to be television. Television fills in the gaps that a novel cannot. It relies on visual cues; demands complete attention and rewards its audiences for their persistence.
I could rehash the arguments about how television corrupts minds. But according to researcher Micha Razel, a small amount of television can actually have benefits, in young children especially. According to his 2001 study results, 9 year olds increased their school performance from exposure to two hours of television per day. By 17, the number drops to a half hour of television. Anything more, and Razel found adverse effects on school performance.
“...victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”
Words on a page convey information in a way that a broadcast signal cannot. In his 1985 book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” culture critic Neil Postman argues that television dilutes any form of rational argumentation into a simple commodity. He insists that only a print medium can convey the complexities of logic and reason.
Postman cites the example that the first fifteen U.S. presidents could have walked down a street without ever being recognized. But most literate people would instantly recognize them and the ideas they stood for just by their writing. Things have shifted to the exact opposite in today’s world. Images on a television set are simply there; they only document what has happened; they don’t lecture. Print has the power to document, but it also has the power to take an ideological stance.
So how can we preserve such a long-lasting tradition? It’s simple really—
Read more for Christ’s sake.
For instance, how many Americans have actually read and analyzed the constitution? There’s a saying that goes “the average American understands the constitution about as well as a 9-year-old understands how to work on a car.” It’s unlikely that many people even remember how many amendments there are once they leave their high schools.
But there’s still hope for the novel, it just might come from its own natural evolution.
Publishers Weekly cites that sales of graphic novels have increased 5 percent from last year. At this point, don’t hold your breath for a resurgence of Faulkner, Hemingway, Heller or even Ellis and Palahniuk.
But perhaps by some miracle, people will pick up these great authors. Perhaps a newfound appreciation for Milton, Shakespeare, Chaucer – even Dostoyevsky isn’t too much to ask for.
“But a man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
But the soft glow and predictable plotlines of the television are probably too tempting for the average American. Every day this becomes more apparent and confirms Vonnegut’s feelings from “Slaughterhouse-Five” when the literature critics are asked what the purpose of the novel is in modern society.
They each respond with, “To provide touches of color in rooms with all-white walls,” “to describe blow-jobs artistically” and “to teach wives of junior executives what to buy next and how to act in a French restaurant.”
This is how we’ve bastardized the novel.
“Poo-tee-weet?”
Kyle Citta doesn’t care that he’s a nihilism studies major. Reach him at kylecitta@dailynebraskan.com
